


Lies About Love

by Alley_Skywalker



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo et Juliette - Presgurvic
Genre: Backstory, F/F, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22953604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/pseuds/Alley_Skywalker
Summary: Before she was Juliet's nurse, Angelica served in the household of the girl who would become her first love. The girl who would become Lady Montague.
Relationships: Lady Montague/Lord Montague (Romeo and Juliet), Nurse/Lady Montague
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	Lies About Love

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the lyrics of the Russian version of "Et Voila Qu'elle Aime":
> 
> _I used to be as naive as you  
>  I lied to myself about love and dreams  
> But fate has other plans and it hits us hard  
> But may God keep you and protect you from my misfortunes_

Angelica watched Juliet sleep. She hugged her pillow and muttered soft words against it as she dreamed, a small smile playing on her face. She must have been dreaming of her Romeo, her first love. Her honey curls were spread over her shoulders and back, glowing in the dim candlelight. She was radiant, beautiful her Juliet, the girl Angelica had raised with the same love and care as she might have given to her own child – it is little wonder men fell in love with her so quickly and so passionately. 

Angelica feared for her. 

Oh, she will do as she was told. She will go to see the young Romeo in the morning, and she will face him and try to discern in his eyes – those eyes she knew so well – what his true intentions were. Did he truly love her Juliet or was Juliet but a conquest for him to laugh and brag about to his friends. 

She had heard some about the Montague heir. The word among the servants and governesses was that he was well-spoken, soft-tempered, courteous and pleasant. _And very handsome,_ the younger girls never failed to note. Of the latter, Angelica has had proof. She had caught glimpses of his face during the evening – masked at the ball and half in shadow as he slipped down from Juliet’s balcony. 

_He looks like his mother,_ she thought, and dropped her knitting in her lap. 

Juliet slept sweetly, without worries. She was still young and innocent. She believed feverishly in true love and that everything always worked out if there was enough faith and heart to keep it alive. Angelica had been like that once, so very long ago. This naivete suited Juliet better, it could be said. It was the prerogative of rich, young heiresses to be romantic and foolish. Daughters of ladies’ maids were not to have such luxuries. But all young girls were foolish and romantic in love. Until they weren’t. 

Juliet slept and Angelica worried – for her little girl and, shamefully, for her own heart. 

_He looks like his mother._

__  
Maddalena had not always been Lady Montague. She used to be simply Maddalena Ezzelini, youngest child and only daughter of Lady Ezzelini to whom Angelica’s mother served as lady’s maid. She was a cheerful, bright girl, with curls down to her waist and dark, intelligent eyes. Angelica would sneak upstairs during balls and parties and hide behind the marble columns, her hands shaking from fear of being discovered, just to watch Maddalena dance. She swirled around in dresses of soft, bright silk, in the arms of elegant men with the most carefree smiles. Petted and adored by her parents, she was always the brightest jewel in the house. She seemed like a princess to Angelica.

Sometimes, warn out by the dancing or annoyed by the insistent company of old men, Maddalena wove through the crowd, hiding from her parents and suitors in plain sight, and go to find Angelica in her hiding place. She brought a glass full of champaign and they drink from it together, giggling and discussing the young men. They took turns peeking out into the dancing hall to see what new topic of discussion could be gained from observing the guests. When Maddalena inevitably flitted away to rejoin the party, leaving Angelica with only an empty champaign flute, Angelica felt as though something hostile and heavy took residence in her stomach and her chest. 

Angelica never considered herself to be a jealous person. She did not much resent her employers their riches and easy lives. Not them, nor others of their cohort. She understood her place and was happy enough with it. But she did resent the young men who could wrap their arms around Maddalena’s waist and sweep her away in a dizzying dance out in the open, where everyone could see. 

In the summers they had picnics in the garden and girls’ tea on the porch. Maddalena’s white and cream summer dresses reflected the sun and their light skirts and sleeves blew in the wind. “I wish you could be as carefree as I,” Maddalena said, referring to the fact that the older Angelica got the more household duties she received. 

“Oh, but I’m happy,” Angelica said, smiling girlishly at her. “Perhaps I could be your ladies’ maid when we are older. The way Mama is for My Lady.” 

Maddalena smiled and bit into a ripe pear. The juice ran over her fingers and Angelica felt the rather inappropriate desire to lick it away. 

In winter she lay in bed with the cold wind howling outside and dreamed of how she would be Maddalena’s maid. How she would help her take the pins out of her hair and run its silky dark strands between her fingers. How she would help her undress, unlacing the bodice of her dress, slipping off the heavy fabric to reveal the petticoats and shift underneath. They were both still girls, their bodies only beginning to blossom into womanhood, slim and soft, a little awkward at some angles. But Angelica didn’t mind. She preferred it. It was familiar, like her childhood, and new and exciting, like the future that lay ahead. 

Then her mother died and a man she had sometimes spoken to at market, came to ask for her hand. 

That he did not ask her but rather Lord Ezzelini did not surprise Angelica. Nor did it surprise her that her employer said yes – she was too young and inexperienced to be a proper maid to his wife or his daughter, who needed the guidance of older, wiser women, like her nurse and the elderly companion to Lady Ezzelini who lived with the family and read the bible with Maddalena. 

What did surprise Angelica was the tearful kiss Maddalena gave her in the hall outside her room, the night before Angelica’s wedding – a soft graze of lips just on the corner of her mouth. A ghost more than a kiss. “To say goodbye,” Maddalena said. 

“But surely I will see you again!” Angelica had cried, her heart tearing itself to shreds. "My husband is in a well-respected position in his employer’s household. What quarrel have you with the Capulets? Even if I could not see you every day, certainly, sometimes – occasionally – at parties…”

“Yes. At parties.” They both knew it would not be enough. 

They did see each other. Not anywhere near as often as they used to, but it did happen. Sometimes at Capulet parties, sometimes on outings in the park, across the town square, or in church. Every time they managed to scrape together a few minutes alone, Angelica thought of the kiss Maddalena gave her before she left to be married, and every time her cheeks turned bright read. 

Until, finally, Angelica gave up and kissed her. They were in the hallway, with the voices of the Capulets’ guests floating to them on waves of tipsy laughter. Neither of them were quite girls anymore. Angelica was married and with child; Maddalena – a maiden of marriageable age and paraded around proudly by her father, in search of agreeable suitors. Yet, Angelica thought she might die of embarrassment from her own forwardness. All the times abed with her husband could not compare to the shame and joy and fear and excitement of that brief, innocent kiss. 

Maddalena bit her lip, then pushed Angelica into a small, empty storage room and closed the door. 

After that night, they traded kisses every time they could get a moment alone, which became even more rare than usual as Angelica got heavier with child. She did not seem to suffer as much from it as many other women did, but, eventually, even she had to go into confinement. She thought of writing to Maddalena, but did not dare risk it. Instead, she spent the long, monotonous days until her child’s birth daydreaming of all the things she and Maddalena still had to explore and find out about each other. Of all the things they had already done and would do. That Maddalena did not write hardly made a difference. _It’s probably even more difficult for her,_ Angelica reasoned. _Her father likely watches her mail._

 __At the first Capulet party after her daughter’s birth, Angelica waited with baited breath for Maddalena to arrive. Angelica watched the street below the nursery window with wistful longing, anticipating that at any moment she would recognize Maddalena’s long curls and familiar gate.

But she did not come. Not for dinner, not for the dancing. At first, Angelica thought she might have missed her arrival during one of the times she was distracted by her duties to the children – her own and Lady Capulet’s seventh-month old nephew. She snuck downstairs several times to look for Maddalena among the guests, but never saw her, only a couple of her cousins. 

She had not come. 

The realization was startling, and Angelica found herself worrying about it all night. In the morning she went to market and asked around. _She’s well,_ the old women and young girls told her in several variations of the same thing, _Word is, she is to be married._

 __Several days later, Angelica had the chance to catch Maddalena on her way home from church and pull her into a side alleyway, away from prying eyes. Maddalena kissed her, but her kisses were uncertain, if not cold. “What is happening?” Angelica asked, confused and afraid. Her own marriage had not torn them apart so she could not understand why Maddalena’s must. “I hear you are engaged? Come see my little girl – she’s an angel! I’m sure my Lady will allow it if you coo over her nephew as well. The poor boy! I waited for you at our last ball, but you did not come?”

Maddalena looked down, wringing her hands, and did not respond for several moments. “I will not come to the Capulets anymore.” 

A cold sort of terror settled in the pit of Angelica’s stomach. “But why?” she managed to squeeze out. “Do you love me less, now you are engaged?”

“No, this has naught to do with you. But it is true that I am to be married.” 

“Then what? Surely your husband will not hold you prisoner! Why marry such a man?”

Maddalena laughed, the sound like chiming bells, but for once it did not make Angelica feel better. “Oh, my dear, Matteo is not a beast. He is in fact very charming.”

Angelica fought to keep the spark of jealousy lit by those words from growing into a furnace. She only partially succeeded. 

“But I will not be welcomed by the Capulets anymore,” Maddalena continued. “And, truly, it’s best if…” She trailed off and wrung her hands again, expression pained. “Best if I no longer see you. For your own good and safety.”

“I don’t understand.” Something was happening, something _had_ happened while she was in confinement, and it was awful somehow, though Angelica could not comprehend or hope to guess what exactly it was. 

“My fiancé is Lord Montague’s eldest son.” 

It all suddenly made sense in one dizzying, heartbreaking realization. Maddalena was looking at her expectantly, worry and hurt written all over her face. But Angelica did not care, could not care, in that moment. It was simply too painful, too unfair. Of all the men in Verona, it had to be a Montague boy Maddalena chose. 

She turned and ran, not hearing Maddalena’s desperate cries for her to come back. 

When Angelica’s husband and daughter were carried away by illness not four years later, and the pregnancy her husband had left her with when he passed resolved in a stillbirth, Angelica allowed herself a stray thought for Maddalena. An old, girlish dream, that seemed impossible now. But, perhaps, Maddalena could still have use for a lady’s maid. Perhaps, Angelica could break what attachment she had formed to little Tybalt – who no longer had need of a nursemaid -- for the sake of that old dream. 

So, she went to carnival and searched through the crowd, reminded of those nights when, as girls, she and Maddalena would watch the guests at the Ezzelinis’ balls. 

When Angelica found her, Maddalena was dancing with her husband. She was as bright and beautiful and graceful as ever. 

And the way she looked at Matteo Montague was the way she used to look at Angelica after they kissed. 

Angelica went home to the cries of a baby girl with whom Lady Capulet had resolved a few hours earlier. Lord Capulet put the bundle in her arms and said her name was Juliet and Angelica was to be her nurse. 

That night, Angelica cried herself to sleep and swore to dedicate the rest of her life to no one but Juliet. 

  
Angelica finished her knitting and blew out the candle. In the moonlight, Juliet’s hair turned from gold to silver, and her skin from porcelain to marble. 

It would be so hard for her little girl to love Romeo, even if he did love her just as passionately. _Could their families ever accept it?_ _What will Maddalena say,_ Angelica wondered, when she _looks into the lovelorn eyes of her only son? What will she remember?_

 __Part of Angelica wanted to stop it all, to keep Juliet from what could be a horrible, unbearable folly. But then, perhaps, it was already too late for that. Juliet’s heart was lost to Romeo. The only way to insure it would not also be lost to heartbreak was to help them be together.

So that was what Angelica would do.


End file.
